REDMANDRIDEBSUSBUNGENTU LIGNUBSD

I see more discussion on installing, compiling, and choosing a non-Windows operating system more than actual examples of using the operating system.  What do you actually do with the operating system?  What do you spend the majority of your time on the operating system doing besides futzing around with the operating system itself (installing drivers, tweaking settings, etc)?

Browse the www, download stuff with azureus, sometimes write documents and tables, hear music, watch movies...

>>1
Um, do the same thing I would do on any other operating system. Except it's easier, especially when it comes to programming.

>>1
Play around with programming, do cool shit with virtualisation (vmware, qemu). You can do all that on windows, but windows really isn't meant for it (or anything else that's marginally demanding), and it shows.

Play ut2004, chat on irc, troll /b/, play with my programming projects. I don't get much time for the last one though, mainly because I spend too much time on the first 3.

I use Ubuntu on my laptop to surf the web specifically because it does something that emultes a scrollwheel when I rub the far right end on my touchpad.

Lazy people use linux too

>>1
On Linux, everything is so easy, it's like I don't even have to be present for the computer to do stuff.  I mean, not like in Windows where trojans will do stuff, but something else.

>>1
You don't hear about that because Unix people spend the whole day compiling shit. When they're done setting an acceptable desktop and finish configuring it, a new cool distro is out and they start over.

>>4
That's bullshit; Windows is just as capable and if individual applications run faster on Windows or Linux it's usually down to the applications. BTW, honestly I like how Windows behaves under heavy load better than Linux, and that's just using the default NT quanta settings, didn't even have to tweak it. It's far more responsive and prioritizes things better IMO.

>>8
GET KERNEL WITH COOL PREEMPT--PATCH.
VROOOOOOOOOOOM VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. (etc.)

Most of the time I browse around, chat on irc, play games (ET, SNES, N64, etc), tweak the system (its actually fun!), download anime & watch it, try new cool apps and stuff like that.
I always feel tied up, when I have to use Windows =(.

>>8
BTW, honestly I like how Windows behaves under heavy load better than Linux
Windows just gives more CPU-time to the explorer, so that the user doesn't recognize heavy load that much. Unfortunately it takes it away from other, critical processes, like databases, webservers...
Linux has just other priorities.

And you don't hear about them that much because the stuff except installing drivers just works.
apt-get install <insert program name>
<Enter>
wait 15b Seconds -> Runs. If you like to compile it yourself, then do it - I'll stay with my precompiled binaies for now :)

>>10
Windows just gives more CPU-time to the explorer, so that the user doesn't recognize heavy load that much.
With the default quanta assignments in foreground preference mode (whatever it was called), Windows NT will give three times as much CPU time to an equally competing foreground application thread with the same priority. For example, open a couple Pythons, do while True: pass, open TASKMGR.EXE, and see what happens: when they aren't in the foreground, they take exactly 50% each. When you make either console active, it boosts to 75%. If you want a different setting, you can VROOM VROOOM your priority quanta in the registry, where you can control how are foreground or background applications boosted and the granularity of context switching, without having to recompile anything of course (don't know how you do this in Linux). Ricing Windows NT in some ways can be easy if you know where to touch.

It also gives the mouse and other input events absolute priority to help with responsiveness, and it seems to handle I/O better. For example, the effects of tar+bzipping a large directory aren't nearly as noticeable while you browse the web as they are under all the Linuces I've tried.

>>11
giving the mouse and input events absolute priority does no good when when no applications are responding to it!  my windows stalls plenty of times under super heavy load. 

while linux may take cycles from your precious web browsing during large file i/o operations, it will complete those operations faster.  try niceing your stuff.

giving the mouse and input events absolute priority does no good when when no applications are responding to it

I take you've never tried using SSH over dialup. It's one of the greatest teachers about the importance of interface responsiveness ever.

Of course it sucks if a program takes a long time to respond. It sucks even more if you're unable to point the mouse at buttons because you keep overshooting them. Like, say, the "cancel" button. HCI, man.

it will complete those operations faster.

Well shit, guys. Let's all go back to batched computing. I always knew those JCL guys were right!

try niceing your stuff.

Nicing is for idiots. Second-guessing the scheduler isn't a good idea unless you know enough about what you're doing, which 99.9% of geeks don't.

>>12
What's worse? Having to wait for the graphical interface to respond or data-inconsistency in your database?

>>8
If you use windows, I hope you have a LOT of ram; because the way that NT handles paging blows second only to solaris. NetBSD seems to be the best at it (it seems to rarely swap, though I may have simply not thrown enough at it) and linux gives acceptable performance with memory swapped out to disk.

I'm not sure what you consider to be a 'heavy load', but in my unprofessional opinion I would not want to have to run anything memory intensive on NT/XP; once NT pages to disk it's pretty much all she wrote performance wise unless you reboot.

Who are you responding to, >>14? >>12 says nothing about data inconsistency in a db. Neither does >>13.

Actually, I'm having real trouble figuring out how a UI is supposed to fuck up a DB. If the priority of the UI is having an effect on db integrity, something is beyond fucked up.

>>16
<3 windows

>>16
486-CPU